Face Of Cheam

Last weekend saw me visit Oxford to see classic rock band Thunder. We went up on a bargain £4 train journey early afternoon with the intention of doing a few pubs. At Oxford station we went round the corner to the Kite Inn. A smoky locals pub, quite small but busy as the England rugby game was on. Pleasant enough. We then went onto a small island nearby where we did the Watermans Arms and the Hollybush. The former saw myself win anexcellentt game of bar billiards. I was trailing by over a thousand points when my opponent knocked over the black mushroom with mere seconds to go before the bolt came down! Did lose the pool though. The Hollybush was only memorable due to the fact the TV had teletext on over the BBC coverage of the Welsh rugby game.
We then searched for Jeff Stelling and found him on in the Goose. I danced round like a loon seeing Skacel had scored a second for the saints, and was even happier when Rasiak won it making it 3-0. Rasiak is currently outscoring the entire Spurs team this season!
The turf was done next. A nice historic pub but becoming a bit touristy and full of upper class types. After a few more pubs, we tried to get to the Wharf House (an infamous real ale spit & sawdust pub) but were horrified to see it boarded up. A disgrace. We found the Royal Blenheimm which had canal Plus showing the French rugby with commentary in the european language too! It was getting near showtime so a final beer was had in the Gloucester Arms, Oxfords own rock pub. Not as good as the Intrepid but every town needs a place like this.
Onto the show and as always Thunder were excellent. A lot of sings from their new album (7 in total) but we did get the classic 'Backstreet Symphony' & 'Love Walked In'. A surprise was the return of 'Gimme Some Lovin'' in the set and 'A Better Man' in the encore. The traditional end came with 'Dirty Love' and after the nananananas had finished we got on the Oxford tube to get home at a reasonable time in the early hours.